Ground Floor Left Gallery: Figuratively speaking (group show)

"Yellow Skeleton on stand" and "AK47" drawings at the Ground Floor Left gallery.
“Yellow Skeleton on stand” and “AK47” drawings at the Ground Floor Left gallery. Oil pastel on cartridge paper, on cardboard.
At the Ground Floor Left gallery in Hackney, East London: Yellow Skeleton and AK47 drawings. Part of a group show with several graduates and established artists called Figuratively speaking.The exhibition rans 14th – 18th March 12-6pm.

Yellow skeleton and sack trolley drawings

Here yellow skeleton and sack trolley drawings are combined.
This is now a lot more about physical objects than flat drawings.
The objects are drawn life-size from an anatomical plastic human skeleton and a sack trolley, using a stick of black oil pastel straight on to white and yellow cartridge paper.
Each drawing is mounted onto cardboard and cut-out.
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Yellow skeleton left turn drawings

Yellow skeleton left turn drawings.
Yellow skeleton left turn. Drawings: Oil pastel on paper and cardboard with red cardboard arrow.

I’ve moved the drawings away from the wall and out into free space. This is the most 3-dimensional of my drawings so far.

I plan to do a lot more of this; combining ideas I’ve had in the past, like cardboard arrows, with my object drawings.

Here the skeleton is turned to it’s left, the action is illustrated by the red cardboard arrow.

Preparing for my next exhibition

Me in front of a large group of skeleton drawings.
Me in front of a large group of skeleton drawings, close to being finished for my next exhibition.

I’m completing two pieces of work for my forthcoming exhibition. A much larger studio space is allowing me to better organise my work; I can get a good distance from it and see my drawings as objects again.

I’ve been drawing with oil pastel on paper, which gives me a fast way of making a solid mark, it also means I have to be careful not to make any mistakes as the pastel is very difficult to remove from the paper. After speaking with a painter in a neighbouring studio I’m going to try treating the paper to seal it, that’ll likely influence the way I draw a little, I won’t need to worry about errors, which can be wiped away.

This picture of me posing in front of the work should hopefully give you a better idea of its scale. There’s some more organisation of the separate drawings to be done, then it’ll be finished.

As I get a chance to look at the work in a larger space I’m reminded of why I

Collapsible bar stool and skeletons
Collapsible bar stool and skeletons drawings in the studio.

made it; I’m interested in enjoying reality for what it is, rather than attempting to create a fiction. I strongly believe that we are surrounded by the most valuable and amazing objects and situations, which we cast aside or don’t even notice, in a pursuit of a more imaginary world.

Isn’t It Enough to See That a Garden Is Beautiful Without Having to Believe That There Are Fairies at the Bottom of It Too? – Douglas Adams.

Rather than being a sign of character, an interest in the meaning of life or a rich imagination, isn’t an interest in the supernatural and celebrity actually a sign of people wishing to escape? Whilst there can be much that we find uncomfortable in the real world there ‘s  already more surrounding us right now that is beyond our imagination and worthy of our attention.

Never have we had so much and never have we taken so little notice of it.

Work in progress: Skeleton drawings

Skeleton drawings
Some life-size skeleton drawings I've been working on.
Back view of a skeleton.
Drawing of the review of a skeleton in progress.

I’ve spent the last two weeks drawing two skeletons. One has a flexible spine, the other a rigid back.

The flexible skeleton has produced more interesting and naturalistic drawings, I can put more energy into the work.
The human skeleton is either a collection of objects (bones) or, in the form I am drawing it, a single object in its own right.

Drawing a skeleton like this allows me to approach a figurative subject in a way that should bypass superficial characteristics like skin colour and to some extent gender.
We all have a skeleton and most of us have a complete skeleton, so you can imagine yourself in the various poses I’ve drawn.